Beyong the Gap

'You can't do that.' The young Raumsdalian sounded absolutely certain.

'Watch me,' Hamnet Thyssen said calmly. Being clear in his own mind about what he aimed to do brought a wonderful sense of freedom. He was his own man, not Sigvat s man or even the Empire's man. He would do what he chose, and hard luck to anyone who didn't like it.

'What am I supposed to do?' the courier bleated.

'Tell the Emperor you delivered his order. Tell him I told you no. Here, wait.' He borrowed a quill and ink from the serai-keeper, who watched the drama with wide eyes. I have read this order. I decline to obey it. Do not blame the messenger—it is not his fault, Hamnet wrote, and signed his name in a fine round hand. He gave the parchment back to the courier. 'There you go. It shouldn't have anything to do with you. This is between his Majesty and me.'

'This won't help,' the courier predicted, voice full of gloom.

'Would you like the wizard here and me to witness whatever Count Hamnet wrote?' Ulric Skakki asked.

Even more gloomily, the courier shook his head. 'I could have God witness it, and it wouldn't do me any good.'

If Sigvat was in one of those moods, the man might be right. 'Tell me something,' Hamnet said. 'Did Earl Eyvind Torfinn’s wife have anything to do with getting this order sent?' The courier looked blank. Hamnet added, 'Her name is Gudrid.'

'Oh. Her. I know who you mean. The one who's like that with the Emperor.' The courier twisted two fingers together. But then he shrugged. 'I don't know anything about it. A clerk gave me the order and told me what was in it in case it got wet or something, that's all.'

The one who's like that with the Emperor. Hamnet Thyssen wasn't much surprised; he'd already had a good idea that that was so.

'All right, then. You'd better head south, then, and let Sigvat know,' Hamnet had a second thought. 'Unless you'd sooner come north with me?'

'No, thanks. I'm not a crazy man. I'm not a rebel.' Shaking his head, the courier walked out of the common room.

Ulric Skakki patted Count Hamnet on the back. 'You crazy man, you,' he said affectionately. 'You rebel.'

'Do not mock this man,' Trasamund growled. 'He has done what a free man should. He has done what a Bizogot would. He's shown he is worthy to come north, worthy to take his place in the Three Tusk clan.'

'However you please, your Ferocity.' Now Ulric seemed as indifferent as a dead man. He could assume any tone, or none, in the blink of an eye. 'See how much you like it when Hamnet tells you where to head in instead of the Emperor.'

'He would not do that.' But Trasamund sounded doubtful.

'Don't be an idiot. Of course he would.' Ulric turned back to Hamnet Thyssen. 'Wouldn't you, your Grace?'

'Probably.' Hamnet knew he would be lying if he said anything else. 'I would if the jarl made the same sort of mistake Sigvat's made, anyhow.'

Trasamund beamed. 'Then we have nothing to worry about.' He thumped his chest. 'Me, I do not make mistakes like this. I am too clever.'

'And too modest, too,' Ulric Skakki remarked.

'Yes. And that,' Trasamund agreed. Liv raised an eyebrow. Audun Gilli looked up at the ceiling. Count Hamnet looked down at his hands. Ulric whistled a snatch of something or other. Trasamund wouldn't have recognized irony if he were a lodestone.

'I think we'd better leave,' Hamnet Thyssen said.

As he went out the door, he wished he were wearing chainmail instead of furs and leather. If that courier decided to exact punishment for disobeying an imperial order, he could be waiting out there with a bow, looking for a good shot. He could be, but he wasn't.

The travelers hadn't gone far from the serai before the Great North Road plunged into the forest belt. Liv sighed. 'All these trees,' she said. 'We could do so much with them—and they even smell good.' Her nostrils twitched. Then they twitched again. The wistful smile left her face. 'That's not just trees I smell.'

Hamnet Thyssen sniffed, too. 'I know what that is—it's the musk of a short-faced bear.'

'It is,' Ulric Skakki agreed. 'No doubt about it. 'Maybe a sow that had a litter, and now she's out of food.' He strung his bow. 'Much as I hate to mention it, we qualify. If a short-faced bear would try to eat Gudrid, it only goes to show they'll eat anything.'

That jerked a laugh out of Count Hamnet. Trasamund visibly started to say something. Then, just as visibly, he changed his mind. Hamnet strung his bow, too. Short-faced bears were hard to kill with arrows. Sometimes, though, they would run away if they got hurt. And sometimes getting hurt would only infuriate them and make them attack all the more ferociously. You never could tell.

'Audun, Liv—if you know any charms for fighting off animals, this would be a good time to dust them off,' Hamnet said.

'These don't always work,' Liv said. 'Animals are more deeply connected to nature than shamanry can ever hope to be.'

'Well, see if you can make this beast unbearable all the same,' Ulric said. Audun Gilli and Hamnet Thyssen winced. Liv was too new to Raumsdalian to get the pun or realize how bad it was.

The horses snorted and sidestepped. They smelled the bear, too, and didn't like it. 'The wind is blowing from it to us,' Hamnet said. 'Maybe it won't realize we're here.'

'I hate to tell you this, your Grace, but bears have eyes as well as noses. They have ears, too,' Ulric said.

'Really? Tell me more about these things, and I'll taste what you have to say.' Unlike Trasamund, Hamnet Thyssen didn't miss sarcasm aimed his way. He didn't put up with it, either.

'There!' The Bizogot jarl pointed. 'I saw something move behind that tree.'

Hamnet peered in that direction. He wasn't sure which tree Trasamund meant, but he didn't see anything moving. Was a short-faced bear clever enough to hide behind a tree trunk and peek out at its intended prey? He wouldn't have thought so, but maybe he was wrong.

Then the bear came out. It wasn't very big, not as far as short-faced bears went, but they went a long way in that direction. When it rose on its hind legs to growl at the travelers, Hamnet saw it wasn't a sow, as Ulric Skakki had guessed—and as Hamnet had thought himself—but a boar.

Ulric let fly. His bowstring thrummed. The bear dropped down in that same instant, so the arrow hissed over its head and thumped into a tree trunk, where it stood thrilling. Ulric swore. He reached over his shoulder to grab another shaft from his quiver.

At the same time as the short-faced bear ducked under the arrow, Liv gasped and Audun Gilli let out a wordless exclamation. Then he said, 'Magic!' and her hands twisted in a sign Bizogots used against evil.

All that Hamnet noted only out of the corner of his ear, so to speak. His attention centered on the bear. If he gave it an arrow in the face, that might hurt it enough to make it run away. He drew his bow—and the bowstring snapped. His curses made Ulric Skakki's seem a beginner's beside them.

The bear let out a deep growl and sprang forward, straight toward him. Ulric shot again in that same moment, but only grazed the bear's right hind leg. Count Hamnet just had time to draw his sword before the bear was on him. It reared again, perhaps to smash him off his horse.

He swung first. His blade bit into its right paw, severing three claws.

Blood spurted and splashed the snow with red. The bear roared, opening its fang-filled mouth enormously wide. As it did, Ulric shot an arrow straight into that inviting target. This time, the short-faced bear's roar was more like a scream. It came down on all fours, raking Hamnet's horse with the claws on its left paw as its forelegs lowered.

The horse screamed, too, more shrilly than the bear had. It sprang away. Hamnet Thyssen tried with all his strength to keep it under some kind of control, and also tried to stay on its back. The bear lumbered after him. The wound on its front paw must have slowed it; short-faced bears could usually outsprint horses.

Ulric Skakki had a perfect shot this time—right at the bear's heart. But his bowstring also broke. This time, he outcursed Count Hamnet.

Trasamund rode up and slammed his sword down just behind the bear's ears. The animal had hardly seemed to notice his approach—all its attention was on Hamnet Thyssen. It let out a startled grunt and slumped to the snow, dead. No wonder—Hamnet heard its skull break.